


A Masquerade for Prey and Predator

by AriWrote



Category: NG (Visual Novel)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Gun Violence, Head trauma, Identity Reveal, Is the Title YA Paranormal Romance of the 2010s for y'all?, Monster Hunters, Multi, Murder, On-Screen Minor Character Death, Oneshot.... Unless?, Pre-Relationship, Rated For Violence, Vampires, Werewolves, Yakuza, pre-polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriWrote/pseuds/AriWrote
Summary: Would you still love us if we were monsters and you were a monster hunter?
Relationships: Amanome Seiji/Hazuki Kaoru/Kijima Akira
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	A Masquerade for Prey and Predator

**Author's Note:**

> If you're here for sexy, this ain't it. I'm just a coward who worries to much about vague descriptions of death. 
> 
> i crawled out of my roseban canoe just long enough to steal food from the popular ships' fridges

The pickup at the warehouses was meant to be normal. Get in, get out, end up with a few million-yen worth in contraband and sell that shit for an astronomically marked up price. It’s what Seiji was good at and what paid Akira’s bills; neither of them could really complain. The bakeneko they were doing trade with wasn’t the type to start a fight. He was shady, sure, and caused a little bit of trouble in the past, but it was nothing Akira acting as one little vampire princey’s guard dog couldn’t solve. It was easy. Business as usual.

Of course, business as usual had a funny way of surprising you.

One second the bakeneko whose name Akira hadn’t had the energy to remember was stammering his way through an explanation of how _really_ Amanome, sir, prince, lord, whatever title was serving to stroke Seiji’s ego that week, his wares were worth _much_ more than what Seiji was offering to pay and _couldn’t_ they haggle, with that kind of voice that peaked in a way that meant he was more than a little aware of Akira sitting in the shadows ready tear him into bits. The next his brain matter was splattered across Seiji’s face.

Time stood still for a moment; neither Akira or Seiji really understanding what they had just witnessed. The man’s face was frozen in the same pitiful expression he’d worn just before his death. If Akira could ignore the bullet hole, it was as if nothing had changed. Like at any time, the man would go back to begging Seiji for more and more money, stroking his ego with praise as if it would ever softened the heart of the Prince of Threats.

But moments never last long; the next one will always come. The expression slackened and so too did the man, falling like gravity had only just remember it reigned supreme. Seiji just barely managed to step out of the way as the body crumpled to the ground, landing with a sickening thud of meat against concrete.

Just like that. It didn’t matter whether or not that man convinced Seiji to pay him more. It didn’t matter at all.

It was Seiji’s hissed, “Were you followed?” resounding in Akira’s head loud enough to hurt (Fucking telepathy, couldn’t he control the volume? ) that fully brought him back just in time to hear the footsteps announcing the poor sap’s killer was steadily approaching.

Neither of them were prepared for the figure that stepped out from the shadows. A young woman, probably only a year or two younger than Akira himself, pointed a gun at the now prone body of the bakeneko. Her pale white hair seem to glow in the moonlight; a strange mark burned on her cheek.

Seiji’s voice in his head hissed the answer to the question he didn’t ask. “The Kurusu family… Of course, that loser wouldn’t notice a hunter following him.”

Said hunter didn’t even seem to notice _them_ at first, her attention absorbed on the man laying prone on the ground. She fired off two more shots, and it was only then that her eyes seem to take in Seiji—cold and efficient, bored even, like she was deciding whether or not to do the extra paperwork that had been dumped on her desk and not if she should kill the only witness to her crime.

Akira felt his bones shift reflexively, hunching in to fit a body more lupine than human. He didn’t know if he was faster than a bullet, but he was more than willing to test it. He didn’t think this woman (Kurusu, some hunter, whatever Seiji had called her) had noticed him. He just hoped that element of surprise would be enough.

But then the wig (the _what?)_ fell. And the gun with it.

“Oh my gosh, Amanome I’m sorry, I didn’t- Are you-” the hunter- no, _Hazuki_ babbled. The mark on her cheek disappeared and so too did any hint of the killer that was responsible for the body cooling at Seiji’s feet. Without a care for anything, she raced forward (delicately stepping over her victim) towards where Seiji’s big brain seemed to be too busy malfunctioning to register that their friend and Akira’s sister’s _babysitter_ was apparently a brutally efficient monster hunter from a family of brutally efficient monster hunters.

Hazuki patted at her dress (one more suited for holding a microphone rather than a _gun_ , Akira thought, wondering faintly who the fuck wore Lolita cosplay to kill a man _)_ , searching for… Honestly, Akira couldn’t have guessed. Eventually, she gave up her search and ripped off one of gloves and held it out for Seiji. “Here, wipe your- God, what are you doing here?”

Seiji, for his part, looked a little green, but took it. Akira groaned, equal parts from the pain of his bones shifting back into a more acceptably human form and annoyance because…

Of course.

_Kaoru Hazuki._

“What was Seiji doing here?” No, the more important question was, _What the fuck was she doing here?_

Hazuki jerked her head towards him, finally noticing that he’d been hidden in the shadows. She just barely missed the last traces of his transformation. “Kijima! You’re… Why are you here?” She stepped away from Seiji, and for a brief moment, Akira thought he saw the girl from just seconds ago flare back up. “Are you-”

“We,” Seiji finally spoke up, his voice cracked at the edges in a way Akira knew he’d deny later, “were making a business transaction with…” Seiji’s gaze landed on the former person behind Hazuki. The man’s features, what had not been destroyed by a bullet crashing through his skull, was obscured by the blood that now pooled on ground.

Ah, Akira realized. How long had it been since he’d last fed?

“Yakuza things,” Akira finished for him. He stepped out into the shadow, nudging Amanome further away from the corpse as he pushed past him and towards Hazuki. “Guess we don’t have to pay him anymore.”

“Ah…. Then you…” Hazuki said, the hunter in her falling back to the shadows to allow for the girl Seiji and Akira knew well to take her place. The color drained from her face, and as though she had not been the person who’d put it there, she seemed to finally register in the body behind her. “I can- I can explain.”

To Akira’s horror, tears began to prickle at the corner of Hazuki’s eyes. In a small voice, she said, “This isn’t how I wanted you two to find out. I can’t believe you saw me like that.”

With her ungloved hand, she wiped at the edge of her eyes, “I’d been meaning to tell you guys for a while. I was worried you wouldn’t believe me! I knew Amanome would write it off as me being a monster-obsessed freak-”

Oh.

Oh no.

No no no.

Absolutely not.

Akira was not having this conversation right now. Not in a fucking warehouse at who the fuck knows when, not next to a bloody body his friend/sister’s babysitter had just shot, not when there was a non-zero chance that one bad misstep meant the next body bleeding out on the ground was going to be someone he (begrudgingly though he was to admit it) cared about.

He looked toward Seiji, Mr. Smooth-Talker, Mr. Plan for Everything, hoping desperately that he’d come up with some way to handle this when Akira couldn’t. That’s how it worked, right? Akira was the muscle; Seiji was the brain. Together, they managed to be a somewhat competent duo. Most of the time.

To his despair, Seiji looked like he was about to keel over, almost blue in the face from where he was doing his best to ignore his impulse to feed. Whatever part of Seiji’s brain that was dedicated to plans was now focused entirely on not revealing himself. Which. Great. Cool. Fine. Wish he’d been told “Multi-Tasking” was apparently too difficult for Seiji’s big vampire brain to handle before he’d needed it.

Fucking hell.

Akira deserved a god damn raise.

As though volume could somehow erase the problems and transport them directly there, Akira shouted, “We’re going to Aunt Natsumi’s bar,” ignoring Hazuki and Seiji’s protest as he dragged them back to where the Amanome family’s car was parked.

“I- Kijima! We- I was just-” Hazuki tried to say.

“Say it at the bar,” was Akira’s response.

“But the product,” Seiji managed to cry, love for money managing to win out over his bloodlust.

“-can be picked up by your men.” Akira replied.

He did not say, “After I’m drunk enough to handle this bullshit,” but if Seiji’s telepathy was any good, he got the message.

“The pickup at the warehouses was meant to be normal,” what a joke.

When was anything in his life “normal”?

**Author's Note:**

> I might come back and write more of this, but as it stands it's a one-shot; it was supposed to be a drabble but fuck me I guess. Don't think to hard about any of it, it's about as close to crack as one can get while not actually being crack.
> 
> And to clear up things, the trio is aged up a bit here. Why? IDK, Akira deserves to get hammered and somehow underage drinking is just Too Illegal in My Murder+Arms Trade Dealing fic.


End file.
